TARRYTOWN, N.Y.  The windows of Kathryn Davis' studio frame the Hudson River like a rippling blue mural, so perhaps it was inevitable that the always-curious Davis would try to paint the river herself.

Plus, her tennis game started to suffer as she neared 100, a milestone she reached Feb. 25.

"I took up painting in my old age because I couldn't play anymore," she said. "And I am looking at the most beautiful river in America."

Davis continues to pursue her passions as a centenarian — from painting to world peace to saving the Hudson — and she has the financial resources to pursue them with gusto. She is the widow of Shelby Cullom Davis, an investor and U.S. ambassador to Switzerland under President Nixon. Davis uses her wealth to dole out millions to the causes she holds dear.

She recently pledged $20 million to buy land and preserve parks along the Hudson, which she speaks of like one of her eight grandchildren and seven "great-grands." She fell for the river when she was pursuing a master's degree in international relations at Columbia University in the late 1920s. She has lived in this riverside village since 1943 and has kayaked on the Hudson as recently as last year.

"The Hudson is supposedly rivaled by the Rhine in Germany, but I've seen the Rhine and it has been spoiled by pollution," Davis said recently at her home, from which she can see a 6-mile stretch of the river. "I don't want to see that happen, more than it has, to the Hudson. It should be prized and cherished."

Named for explorer Henry Hudson, who stumbled upon the river in 1609, the Hudson stretches 315 miles from the Adirondack mountains to New York City. The river is recovering from decades of heavy pollution, and environmentalists are now focused on stopping over-development along its banks.

Steve Rosenberg, senior vice president of Scenic Hudson, the non-profit group to which Davis made her gift, estimates that it would cost $1 billion to buy 100,000 acres and ensure public access to the river. In 2001, endowments worth about $250 million that were set up by the late founders of Reader's Digest, Lila Acheson and DeWitt Wallace, were awarded to Scenic Hudson and another land preservation group, the Open Space Institute.

Now, Scenic Hudson hopes that Davis' commitment — targeted at specific projects like creating a park in Tarrytown — will inspire other big-spenders to write checks.

"There is a window that's closing because of the development pressure in the Hudson Valley," Rosenberg said. "That's why the timing of this gift is so crucial." It's not hyperbole to say Davis is more active than many people who are a half-century younger. She was interviewed a day after returning from Europe and a day before heading to Maine. She has visited Russia more than 30 times, most recently last year, and has lectured about Russia and the former Soviet Union.

Born in Philadelphia to a carpet-manufacturing family, Davis graduated from Wellesley College in 1928. After earning her master's at Columbia, both she and her husband received doctorates in political science from the University of Geneva in 1934.

Shelby Davis, in addition to becoming wealthy on Wall Street, served as an adviser to Thomas Dewey's presidential campaigns and as Nixon's ambassador to Switzerland. He died in 1994 at 85.

The Shelby Cullom Davis Foundation continues to give away about $5 million a year, mostly to support higher education and international relations. One of Davis' recent pet projects awards $10,000 to college students with innovative ideas to promote peace.

Davis, who calls herself a liberal Republican, opposes war except when the USA is attacked. How would she fight the war on terror?

"Kill them with kindness," she said. "Kill them with better schools and better hospitals, more care. People think I'm an idle dreamer. but we have to change history. I think we can if we want to."

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Kathryn Davis is a 100-year-old philanthropist who is giving $20 million to Scenic Hudson for buying land and creating parks along the Hudson River in Westchester County. Davis looks from her home in Tarrytown, N.Y., onto the Hudson River.

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